Influence of particle size on the ion effect of TiO2 nanoparticle doped nematic liquid crystal cell

In this study, the transient currents of nematic liquid crystal cells doped with different sizes of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles were measured. The experimental results illustrate that doping TiO2 nanoparticles into nematic liquid crystals leads to a reduction in the moving-ion density and the amount of reduced impurity ions is related to the size of doped TiO2 nanoparticles. Under the same doping concentration, TiO2 nanoparticles with a smaller average particle size are more effective in trapping the impurity ions. The measurements of voltage transmittance curves and time evolution characteristics of the doped liquid crystal cells further confirm this phenomenon. This study suggests that TiO2 nanoparticles with a smaller size are better candidates as nanodopants for liquid crystal display applications. (C) 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics